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Kolam Indian Restaurant in Tooting, London
May 28th, 2009 by Olivier

Kolam Restaurant
60 Upper Tooting Road, Tooting
London SW17 7PB

Kolam restaurant

Reviewed on Thursday 28 May 2009

Kolam Indian restaurant

Kolam Indian restaurant

We had intended to go to to Al Mirage since it has been a long time since we were there. On the way, we noticed Kolam and its promotion of £15 for two for two starters, two currys, two bread or rice, and a bottle of wine. Actually it is the bottle of wine that caught our attention since many restaurants in this area are Pakistani and alcohol free. So can we eat well for a little over the price of two fastfood menus?

Outside, the restaurant looks small but inside it is pretty long to the point to waitress has to walk to come near your table to check everything is all right. It is decently decorated. It does not look like an ordinary curry “diner” but more like a comfortable restaurant (with tablecoths, etc). For the starters the requirement from that £15 deal was to take a South India starter. The menu is quite extensive so the choice was in no way restricted. We chose a dosai masala and a dosai “special” masala. A dosai is a crepe stuffed with potato curry, onion and for the “special” masala it also had some chicken. It is a meal that can be eaten for breakfast too, apparently. They were both good, with crepes that were crispy on the outside. They were surprisingly spicy, and even hot. The two sauces were good too. The green one was served cold while the other one was warm. I do not know enough about Indian food to tell what they were exactly. It is a very filling meal. Seriously, after eating it we wondered how we were going to eat the main course! As main courses, we had to choose between currys and we decided on the spicy chicken vindaloo curry and a chilli chicken curry. We had a problem with them: they were both very spicy, which is fine as we are both into hot spices, but they were WAY too salty. The vindaloo was salty but could be handled. The chilli chicken was just too salty. It was more salty than spicy (and it was seriously spicy, so that tells you about the amount of salt). The two currys looked similar but had different taste in case you wonder about it looking at the photos below. The naans could not soak up the salt. They were on the heavy, dense kind of naan. They could be good if things were not that salty. The wine included in the menu was a bottle of Marcel Hubert dry red. It is of course a cheap wine that costs around £3 but it was not too bad. If you do a search for that wine you can find other restaurants charging about £10 for this same wine!

Spacious restaurant

Spacious restaurant

Marcel Hubert red wine included in the £15 menu for two.

Marcel Hubert red wine included in the £15 menu for two.

Dosai

Dosai

Dosai masala

Dosai masala

Not too bad for a cheap wine

Not too bad for a cheap wine

Inside the dosai

Inside the dosai

The sauces served with the dosai

The sauces served with the dosai

Naan and vindaloo curry

Naan and vindaloo curry

Chilli chicken curry

Chilli chicken curry

Details of the vindaloo curry

Details of the vindaloo curry

Cost and conclusion: two starters, two main courses and a bottle of wine for £15. Hard to beat it! Just too bad the currys were so incredibly salty because the surrounding was pleasant, the waitress very nice… Without that problem (which completely ruined the meal), it would be a good value for money and we can only think and hope it was a one time mistake. In the area, you have Al Mirage if you are into curry (2 minutes walk toward Tooting Broadway) and the Kings Head if you are looking for a pub (same way as for Al Mirage but it is closer).

Kolam on Urbanspoon


4 Responses  
  • Kish Shen writes:
    August 24th, 2009 at 22:23

    I had dinner here about two days ago. I had a lamb (dry without much source), and a vegetable (okra), and I found that both were very salty as well. It is very unusual that I find my food salty, as I am constantly told I eat too much salt.

  • Olivier writes:
    August 24th, 2009 at 22:46

    Thank you for taking the time to share your experience!

  • Mike writes:
    November 25th, 2009 at 22:35

    I have eaten at many Indian restaurants in London during the last 25 years, and without question the Kolam serves the best Indian food that I have had. Ever. Bar none.
    Also, fortuitously (and bizarrely) it is amongst the cheapest.
    The cooking is the sort of subtle blend of flavors that you just don’t get in your average London Indian restaurant. The cuts are always lean and tender. The food is all cooked fresh, and tastes like it. The sauces are multi-faceted. The lemon and tamarind rices are frankly magnificent.
    All the cooking is done hands-on by the owner. The place is family-owned and run (in charming style).
    I have never seen the place more than half full. It is frankly a little shabby, which suits me well as I would like to keep this hidden gem to myself.
    In fact, ignore this.

  • Carl writes:
    February 13th, 2010 at 10:00

    Went there last night with a group of 30 for a monthly Tooting Curryclub- we’d booked in advance so they closed the restaurant just for us! Right from the outset we felt very looked after and the fact it is a family run business brought a nice feel to the evening- there was a warmth and interest which was lovely. And the meals were reasonably priced- and tasted great. I had possibly the best Chicken Biryani ive had. The food was fairly spicy which was a plus for me. Those who joined me last night were all impressed and KOLAM is definately worth recommending if you like a relaxed family run restaurant with good tasty reasonably priced dishes.



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